Google Analytics Contest Winners!

Oh, it took forever, but we finally have winners and runners-up to the Google Analytics Documentation Contest. (One of the judges, Avinash Kaushik, wrote me this morning, “You have my permission to shame me on this one, you can blame me for the delay in awarding prizes.”) The other judge was Justin Cutroni of Epikone. I let them make the decisions and then cast the tie-breaking vote where necessary. Justin and Avinash, thank you.

Before I start, a word about prizes. I must be such an Ugly American, it never occurred to me that three of the four winners would be on other continents, making it hard (actually, impossible) for me to give away some of the prizes for example. But all is not lost! Here is what we are giving away, in no particular order:

2. A gift certificate for up to $50 in a free ink/toner refill for your printer from Databazaar. That one is good in the US and Canada only. (Thanks, Databazaar.)

3. and 4. Copies (when it is available, which I hope is in the next month or so) of Justin Cutroni’s new O’Reilly e-book, Google Analytics Shortcuts. Shareen Jordan, who works at LunaMetrics, says this about the book, “I open the .pdf in the morning and I don’t turn it off until the day is over.” Justin, we (LunaMetrics) are buying this one these two gifts.

And now for the awards! (drumroll, please):

The “I’m Smarter Than Google Analytics” award goes to Steve McInerney for pointing out that the Regular Expressions(RegEx) for IP addresses in this link are too greedy, and will match much more than GA thinks they will. You can read his full entry here. For Steve, we have a copy of Avinash’s book. I know that he already has one copy, but is looking forward to another one, hopefully autographed. Category: Incorrect documentation

The “Does GA have to hide the information?” award goes to Daniel Waisberg, who really wants to know how many pages he gets in Content before he has to see “other.” About this entry, Judge Cutroni wrote, “Another winner!Can you see a trend in my selections?Again, the issues I have with the documentation are the lack of information about the overall architecture of the applications.This includes limits in the data, how the reports are constructed and the basic processing of the application. ” For Daniel, we have a copy of Justin’s book, too. This one is going to Tel Aviv. Category: Missing Documentation

Our owner and CEO, Robbin Steif, started LunaMetrics twelve years ago. She is a graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Business School, and has served on the Board of Directors for the Digital Analytics Association. Robbin is a winner of a BusinessWomen First award, as well as a recent Diamond Award for business leadership. You should read her letter before you decide to work with us.

Awesome! Thank you very much. These types of “contests” should really be done more often than not, it’s an excellent way to get feedback directly to Robbin, Justin Cutroni, Avinash, and other “Web Analytics SuperStars”. 🙂

steve

That would easily have to be the most entertaining bug hunt I’ve ever done! 🙂

She doesn’t know it yet, but my director @ work will be receiving my (ashamedly red-faced) barely read existing copy. Banana Cake. Chocolate Fudge, and now Web Analytics Books. These are the additional value-adds to getting ones contract renewed each year. 😉